ALEC Exposed, And Archived, And Available! They Aim To Privatize Public Education!

Julie Underwood, Dean of UW-Madison School Of Education talks about the legislation that aims to privatize education, all of which have a new home at ALECexposed.org

Susan Ohanian Finishes The Times' Incomplete Piece On Bill Gates Owning Public Education

All the News that's Fit to Print and What the New York Times Leaves Out

Susan Notes:

This is a supplement to Sam Dillon's front-page New York Times article Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates, May 22, 2011.

Mr. Gates is creating entirely new advocacy groups. The foundation is also paying Harvard-trained data specialists to work inside school districts, not only to crunch numbers but also to change practices. It is bankrolling many of the Washington analysts who interpret education issues for journalists and giving grants to some media organizations.
--Sam Dillon, The New York Times, front page, May 22, 2011 

What Good News: Sam Dillon at the New York Times has discovered that "local teachers who favor school reform" are actually operatives for a national organization,Teach Plus, financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

What Bad News: For years, a number of us have been screaming about Gates buying up education policy but nobody would listen. 

But let's celebrate what has happened. This story revealing Gates funding everything from the development (and evaluation) of Common Core Standards to the promotion of the public school-bashing "Waiting for 'Superman'" film was front-page news in the paper of record. And until this happened, the Gates' Foundation's wealth has put it beyond criticism--except by those of us marginalized as the lunatic fringe. In a spirit of collegiality, I offer a few notes to flesh out Dillon's account. 

For starters, take a look at the way the Gates Foundation is commonly portrayed: Paul Hill's A Foundation Goes to School, in Education Next, Winter 2006. 

Although the Hoover Institution publishes Education Next, the business office is at Program on Education Policy and Governance, Harvard Kennedy School. Paul Peterson,Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, is the editor-in-chief. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution is senior editor. Finn also lists himself as "public servant." The Next mission statement takes the high road, professing that the publication "partakes of no program, campaign, or ideology. It goes where the evidence points." That said, in February 2010 the Gates Foundation gave Next $224,030 to support their Charter Initiative. 

On June 7, 2007, Bill Gates, at the time, the world’s richest man, received an honorary doctorate from Harvard. 

Few Degrees of Separation 
Gates operates in a small world of kissing kin. Everybody is inter-connected. Dillon doesn't mention that Monique Burns Thompson, President of Teach Plus, is a co-founder of New Leaders for New Schools. Before that, she was assistant brand manager at Quaker Oats. Heather Peske, National Director of Programs, was formerly Director of Teacher Quality at Education Trust. She launched her career in education as a Teach for America corps member. 

There are plenty of Ivy League graduates on their Board of Advisors, which means: 
1) They have the connections to make things happen; 2) They have both of Barack Obama's ears. Obama can't seem to say no to Ivy League pundits. 

Teach Plus Advisory Committee Members 
• Margaret Boasberg, The Bridgespan Group [worked extensively on strategies to increase the philanthropy of high net worth individuals] 
• Stacey Childress, Harvard Business School 
• Rachel Curtis, Human Capital Strategies for Urban Schools [paid $2,000 a day for services on human capital for Chicago Public Schools when Arne Duncan was in charge]
• Ben Fenton, New Leaders for New Schools [cofounder and chief strategy and knowledge officer; formerly at McKinsey & Co] 
• Ethan Gray, The Mind Trust [After college, worked as a research assistant at Education Sector in Washington, DC; at Mind Trust he's in charge of "spreading entrepreneurship nationwide"] 
• Ellen Guiney, Boston Plan for Excellence [Executive Director of BPE, which now focuses its efforts on "the use of formative assessments to help teachers tailor instruction to individual students, and increased data analysis to inform instructional decisions and professional development" 
• Amanda Hillman, Teach for America 
• Joanna Jacobson, Strategic Grant Partners 
• Jason Kamras, District of Columbia Public Schools [2005 National Teacher of the Year, now director of human capital strategy for teachers in D.C. Public Schools, which includes enthusiastic support of "pay for performance"; former Teach for America corps member] 
• Sandra Licon, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [Program Officer, Education Advocacy; office located in Washington D. C. 
• John Luczak, Joyce Foundation [conservative foundation gives "innovation grants" to charter schools; previously worked at US Department of Education] 
• Julie Mikuta, New Schools Venture Fund [partner focusing on the firm's human capital investment strategy as well as management assistance for a variety of portfolio ventures. She serves on the board of directors of Bellwether Education Partners, Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF), KIPP DC, New Teacher Center (NTC), Pacific Charter School Development, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC); led trainings for school board and superintendent-teams of large urban districts at the Center for Reform of School Systems, through an initiative supported by The Broad Foundation; Vice President of Alumni Affairs for Teach For America] 
• Talia Milgrom-Elcott, Carnegie Corporation [previously Project Director of System Transformation at the New York City Department of Education, working as part of Chancellor Joel Klein's team] 
• Lynn Olson, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [one of participants in SMART OPTIONS: INVESTING THE RECOVERY FUNDS FOR STUDENT SUCCESS; former senior editor of Education Week and project editor of their Quality Counts report] 
• Elizabeth Pauley, The Boston Foundation [former Teach for America corps member] 
• Ari Rozman, The New Teacher Project 
• Cara Delzer Stadlin, New Schools Venture Fund 
• Mary Wells, Connect the Dots 
--reported at http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_atrocities.php?id=4014 Aug. 9, 2010 

NOTE: In "Michelle Rhee is 'Not Done Fighting' against public school teachers and unions,” Adam Neenan reported for Substance, Dec. 16, 2010, on one Teach Plus data-collecting strategy as they hosted a by-invitation-only discussion with educational entrepreneur Michelle Rhee. 

The unnamed Washington Post blogger referred to by Dillon is, of course, Valerie Strauss. She revealed some of Gates Foundation shady funding in Gates spends millions to sway public on ed reform. She included hot links to important documents in this operation. You won’t want to miss the Confidential Letter. 

Don’t you wonder why journalists are so reluctant to acknowledge the good work of other journalists? Why does Valerie Strauss remain unnamed? 

How Bill Gates Bought Public Education (or Go Linux!)

It's pretty scary, the way a rich guy can influence an entire nation to succumb to his whim. It's scarier that the public let him.

...

Mr. Hess, a frequent blogger on education whose institute received $500,000 from the Gates foundation in 2009 “to influence the national education debates,” acknowledged that he and others sometimes felt constrained. “As researchers, we have a reasonable self-preservation instinct,” he said. “There can be an exquisite carefulness about how we’re going to say anything that could reflect badly on a foundation.”

“Everybody’s implicated,” he added.

Indeed, the foundation’s 2009 tax filing runs to 263 pages and includes about 360 education grants. There are the more traditional and publicly celebrated programmatic initiatives, like financing charter school operators and early-college high schools. Then there are the less well-known advocacy grants to civil rights groups like the Education Equality Project and Education Trust that try to influence policy, to research institutes that study the policies’ effectiveness, and to Education Week and public radio and television stations that cover education policies.

The foundation paid a New York philanthropic advisory firm $3.5 million “to mount and support public education and advocacy campaigns.” It also paid a string of universities to support pieces of the Gates agenda. Harvard, for instance, got $3.5 million to place “strategic data fellows” who could act as “entrepreneurial change agents” in school districts in Boston, Los Angeles and elsewhere. The foundation has given to the two national teachers’ unions — as well to groups whose mission seems to be to criticize them.

“It’s easier to name which groups Gates doesn’t support than to list all of those they do, because it’s just so overwhelming,” noted Ken Libby, a graduate student who has pored over the foundation’s tax filings as part of his academic work.

...
NYT

How Bill Gates Plans On Privatizing U.S. Public Schools

Philip Kovacs

Book Description:  There has been much public praise for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts to reform public education. However, few scholars have engaged substantively and critically with the organization’s work. While the Gates Foundation is the single largest supporter by far of "choice" initiatives particularly with regard to charter school formation, it is pushing public school privatization through a wide array of initiatives and in conjunction with a number of other foundations. What are the implications for a public system as control over educational policy and priority is concentrated under one of the richest people on the planet in ways that foster de-unionization and teacher de-skilling while homogenizing school models and curriculum? The Gates Foundation and the Future of US "Public" Schools addresses this crucial, unanswered question while investigating the relationships between the Gates Foundation and other think tanks, government, and corporate institutions.

Charters Are Private?

Just How Private are Charter Schools?

There's been a concerted effort by the pro-charter crowd to "educate" the public about the so-called publicness of charter schools. You'll regularly see "charters" referred to as "public charter schools" these days, and don't think this slight change in label was accidental. The variety, quality, and types of charter schools - from your blatantly for-profit EMOs like the Edison Schools, the assortment of no excuses charter chaingangs like KIPP, rather progressive versions like the Big Picture schools, "mom and pop" charters started and run by legitimate teachers, and a number of other different types - makes this field more complicated than it first appears.

Given the variety of changes during the Bush years (and extending back towards Reagan), the whole privatization and for-profit thing has gotten a bad reputation (deservedly so), particularly given the whole Wall Street collapse '08, America's high poverty rate, and the vast disparities in income and access to resources.

"Public charter schools" is precisely the kind of term designed to obscure or confuse. Make no mistake about it - there are some very real things about charter schools that make them private. They're not a full-blown version of privatization a la vouchers, but they share a heck of a lot with the nuclear option for public education. From the East Valley Tribune:

Court ruling favors charter schools

HOWARD FISCHER, CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

January 4, 2010 - 3:41PM , updated: January 5, 2010 - 5:34PM

Employees cannot use federal civil rights laws to sue the owners of Arizona charter schools, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday.

The judges acknowledged that, under Arizona law, charter schools are "public schools." They are authorized to operate under state law and must comply with some - but not all - of the same requirements as traditional district schools.

But Judge Sandra Ikuta, writing for the unanimous court, said that does not make the school and its owners "state actors," something required to make a civil rights challenge. Instead, the court concluded, the school is a private company despite those state laws, at least for purposes of deciding who to hire, fire and, in this case, whether to provide a referral for a future job.

The ruling is a setback for Michael Caviness, who claims that actions by Horizon Community Learning Center employees prevented him from getting a job with the Mesa Unified School District. But attorney David Larkin, who represents Caviness, said it could have broader implications for those who work for charter schools.

For example, he said, public school employees who make comments in the media on matters of public concern are protected against retaliation from their principals and school boards. He said the civil rights laws his client cited can clearly be used to sue those officials for violating the teacher's freedom of speech.

"If a charter school teacher now does that, they don't have the (same) right to freedom of speech as a public school employee," he said.

[Continued here]

So it's not some crazy left-wing blabble to raise concerns about charters being a privatization movement - but the pro-charter crowd will do all they can to misinform the public about the private-ness of public schools. The 9th Court's ruling further confirms the privateness of charter schools; sure, they operate with public funds, but they're fall less transparent than most public schools (and public schools are not as transparent as they should be - see Michelle Rhee in particular).

They often claim education is a "civil right," but their pro-charter agenda wipes away your civil rights.

h/t KL

Disaster Capitalism And Charter Schools

I have been away, and now I am back. Looks like I didn't miss too much. This piece, however, is long and necessary:

Katrina had presented an opportunity for what Naomi Klein refers to as “disaster capitalism”; “Within nineteen months,” writes Klein, “New Orleans’ public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools.” (The Shock Doctrine, 5) The hurricane was the ideal opportunity to replace the public schools with a new system of charter schools which would serve as the model for a broader movement across America. Danny Weil, author of Charter School Movement, argues that this shows “how public school systems in their entirety are being targeted for sweeping conservative change in the form of a contractualized charter school experiment that is the most radical of its kind in the nation.”